12 Through 15
by Gracie-luu
Summary: It was hard to be the older brother. It was even harder to be the older brother to someone like Sam. There were things about him that Dean couldn't control, that he couldn't fix. He should be able to fix everything. That was what older brothers were supposed to do. Fix things. Dean couldn't do that with Sam and it irked him more than the damn apocalypse did. Season 4.


_12 Through 15_

* * *

_Hey,  
The walls keep coming down but I'll stand brave  
Love is just an empty word you say  
I found loyalty and it was pain_

Dean wondered if there was a road in the U.S he hadn't seen before. Not that he would know, they are looked the same to him anyway. He blinked rapidly, forcing himself to focus on the yellow lines despite the undeniable exhaustion he was feeling. It did not help that Sam was sleeping next to him, filling the cabin of the Impala with his sputtering snores. Snores and the stale smell of old French fries was all Dean had to keep the sleep at bay.

It wasn't working as well as he would have liked.

He squeezed the wheel until his knuckles turned white with his right hand, reaching his left hand up to rub his eyes until little dots of color shot across his vision. The nights were the worst. It was a truly spectacular achievement, considering his life had been one suckfest after another.

He shook his head, squinting at the road in front of him.

They were somewhere in Tennessee, he thought.

Tennessee.

A more boring state had never existed. He wondered, briefly, what normal people thought when they traveled around the United States. Dean would never know what it was like to be normal, what it was like to measure the world in things seen and experienced and not in the numbers of people he saved and the numbers of things he had killed. Did they truly find the Largest Ball of Twine to be interesting, or were they just kidding themselves? Dean had done his fair share of lying to himself and he knew, sitting in that car listening to Sam snore, that he just couldn't do it anymore.

_And you hate,  
God keeps coming down cause you're afraid  
Lucifer just might be your middle name  
You're the only angel that got away_

Sam shifted in his sleep, mumbling to himself. Dean looked over at him. The bruise on the left side of his face was turning the sickly brown that meant it was on it's way out. Most people would be comforted by that, but they were not most people. A new bruise would come, bigger, nastier, and more painful than the last. Dean could see the dark circles under Sam's eyes, a side effect of exhaustion and residual of a broken nose. The darkness spread out and up to the edges of Sam's eyes. He didn't look as young as he used to. Neither of them did.

Somewhere between the state lines and the endless hunts, Dean had noticed it. He noticed it and now he couldn't stop seeing it. He couldn't stop seeing Sam rubbing his eyes, and squeezing his hands, and making that altogether poop face that Dean had come to associate with Sam and his headaches. Sam twitched; eyes squinting shut so tight the eyelids changed color. Dean had hoped that Sam would be able to make it through one night without waking up, drenched in sweat and out of breath. They were in arguably one of the most boring states in the union, why shouldn't it be the place that Sam got to a have a good, normal, boring nights sleep?

_And we're all alone now  
With nothing to stand in our way  
Don't swear that it's over if love is our secret  
I know you won't keep it_

_We're taking this easy_  
_Cause darling, that's what dreams are made of_  
_This story is probably made up_  
_So why don't you go back to sleep?_

Dean didn't realize he had been watching Sam rather than watching the road until the car blared its horn at him. Dean looked up suddenly, pupils dilating in the blinding light from the oncoming car. He jerked the wheel violently, steering the Impala away and onto the crumbling shoulder on the side of the road. He slammed on the brakes, slapping the wheel with both of his hands as hard as he could.

"What's going on?"

Dean was silent for a moment, breathing deeply and smelling the old fries. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, before he spoke to Sam in a gruff voice. "Nothing, Sammy. Go back to sleep."

Sam snorted, causing Dean to look up. He was rolling his shoulders back, massaging it with his right hand. "I'm driving. How long has it been since you've slept?"

Days. Weeks maybe. Dean wasn't sure.

"I'm fine."

"Right. Dean, you…"

Dean gripped the wheel again, looking over at Sam sharply. "I'm fine, Sammy." Sam's eyebrows furrowed. Dean had lost count of how many times they had had this exact same conversation over the last couple of weeks.

"Dean you look like hell."

"Not one of your more subtle compliments, Sammy."

"You know what I mean."

Dean wasn't sure what he was supposed to take from that. He did look like hell. It was a rather unfortunate side effect of having gone to hell, oddly enough.

_Hey,  
The walls keep tumbling down but I'll stand brave  
Maybe I'm the one who's in your way  
I'm the only reason love got away (love got away)_

_And we're all alone now (yeah I'll be alright)  
With nothing to stand in our way (yeah I'll be just fine)  
Don't swear that it's over (don't leave me guessing), if love is our secret  
I know you won't keep it_

Dean ignored Sam's protests as he pulled the Impala back onto the unimportant road. Sam let out a frustrated side, reaching forward to fiddle with the radio. Dean slapped his hand away before he even realized it.

"No. I can't handle your crap music all the way from here to Philadelphia."

"Oh, come on. My music is not that bad." Sam sat back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest.

An understatement, if there ever was one.

Dean did not answer him, choosing to turn up the worn out tape of Foreigner instead. He could feel Sam staring at him, watching him, from the corner of his eyes but he refused to look over. Sam could ask him all he wanted, could prod at him every day for the next hundred years and Dean would never tell him what was wrong. How could even begin to put it into words? Words seemed so small, so lacking when it came to describing what he was feeling. He remembered, at that moment, what their Mom had told him when he was five.

_"At the end of the day, words can try, but they will never truly convey what a person is feeling." _

Dean had been crying about losing his favorite toy had the park. He hadn't been able to say why he was so upset. He had been a ball of messy tears and snot by the time their Mom had gotten a hold of him. She had held him and spoke those words to him, whispering them in his ear as he cried into her chest.

He thought they fit him now, as a miserable excuse for an adult, better than they did when he was a less miserable excuse of a child.

_We're taking this easy (we're taking this easy)_  
_Cause darling that's what dreams are made of_  
_This story is probably made up_  
_So why don't you go back to sleep?_

_(Just like you never could) why don't you dream about me?_  
_(Just like you always should) 'cause I'm the reason you're alone now_  
_Quit blaming everything on your hometown_  
_Why would you say that?_

He glanced over at Sam when he knew he wasn't looking any more. He eventually stopped when he figured out that Dean wasn't going to talk to him. Dean didn't want to talk to anybody. He didn't want to talk to Bobby, he didn't want to talk to Rufus, he didn't want to talk to Ellen, and he didn't want to talk to Jo. He didn't want to talk to the bag of dicks angels. He wanted to drive his Impala until there was nothing there that he needed to talk about. Until there was no apocalypse, and there was no Ruby, and there wasn't anything that people, and the angels apparently, were expecting him to do.

All he wanted to do was drive until there was nothing left.

He didn't sleep because he couldn't.

Dean couldn't close his eyes without seeing all the souls he had tortured, all the people who he hadn't been able to save. The world would have gone to shit while he slept. They weren't the worst of it, though. In his dreams, nightmares really, he saw Sam. He saw him red mouthed, with black eyes. Dean saw Sam for what he always was afraid he would wake up to. He was afraid if he went to sleep, he would wake up and Sam wouldn't be Sam. Dean hated the Sam he saw in his dreams. He hated him more fiercely than Dean hated himself sometimes. Those were the worst. They were worse than seeing the world burn around him.

The irrationality of it all was ludicrous, but Dean had decided he no longer cared for terms like that.

The entire world was ludicrous. His life was ludicrous.

Sam was ludicrous.

_Oh, oh, oh I think you're better off when you're on your own_  
_You said you'd keep me close_  
_Cause I'm the closest thing that you've ever known_

_You said the problem's in your heart_  
_But the problem's who you are_  
_So leave me alone now_  
_I'd rather be lonely when I scream and shout and let it out_

It was hard to be the older brother. It was even harder to be the older brother to someone like Sam. There were things about him that he couldn't control, that he couldn't fix. He should be able to fix everything. That was what older brothers were supposed to do. They were supposed to keep their younger sibling from feeling pain, from feeling hurt, from feeling alone, from making mistakes. He couldn't do that with Sam. He wasn't sure if it was something anyone would be able to do. It was Sam. It was Sam who made it so undeniably hard for Dean. God, he made it so hard. Half of the time he wanted to scream at him and half the time he wanted to say nothing at all, say nothing to Sam or anyone else ever again.

Loving your sibling was supposed to be effortless. Loving them was supposed to make you proud.

Loving your sibling wasn't supposed to make you hurt all the damn time.

_We're taking this easy (we're taking this easy)  
Cause darling that's what dreams are made of  
This story is probably made up  
So why don't you go back to sleep?_

_Why don't you dream about me? _  
_ 'cause I'm the reason you're alone now _  
_Quit blaming everything on your hometown _  
_why would you say that?_

He blamed Sam for it, but perhaps it was Dean. Maybe he was the problem and he was too much of a stubborn ass to see it.

* * *

**Song: 12 Through 15 by Mayday Parade. **

**I heard it and instantly thought of Sam and Dean season 4. This was the first time I've ever written anything like this, so it was kind of challenging, especially since I don't write SPN. So let me know what you think! **

**REVIEW! :)**


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